Kate Rice and Stan Dimitrov were not high school sweethearts, but when their chance reunion five years after graduation was certainly sweet.
Both graduated from Little Rock Central High School in 2001, Stan's first and only year at Central. They can't be sure they had a single class together, but somehow they found each other among a sea of students.
"The fact that we knew each other in high school and were friends is kind of kismet because it's a giant school," Kate says. "I remember at graduation I had to introduce myself to the person next to me and I didn't know who they were. But we hung out in the same group of friends."
Kate went to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville after graduation, and Stan went to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. They weren't close enough to bother keeping in touch then, but reconnected instantly when the opportunity arose.
"We met each other at a wedding and then became friends," Kate says.
The bride and groom were not, incidentally, friends they had in common from school. Stan's best friend from college was marrying Kate's cousin.
For a year after that event, they hung out together as friends. The day after Christmas 2006, Stan asked her for a date.
"I would say we both definitely had crushes on each other big time during that whole year of just being friends, and so I think by the time he finally asked me out that it was like a relief that we could finally be together and not kind of pretend that we were just friends," Kate says. "We jumped right in."
Stan was part of a young professionals group at the Arkansas Arts Center, now the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, and on Jan. 12, 2007, that group had scheduled an event around the Delta Exhibition.
It was appropriate that this would be their first official date. Art had been constants for both of them. Kate grew up in Little Rock, taking art classes at the arts center, as well as in and out of school. She and her family shopped at local art galleries and supported local artists.
Stan was born in Bulgaria and lived in Scotland before moving to Little Rock in 2000.
"I think it's always been interesting to see art around the world and to see how people in some parts of the world see the world around them," he says. "It's definitely always been a part of how I see the world."
They were together almost daily after that. Both lived in Hillcrest and they enjoyed hiking in Allsopp Park or reading the paper over coffee and brunch at Satellite Café.
"About six or seven months into dating, we got a black Lab, and she was the center of our little world until we had kids," Kate says. "We loved going to Lake Ouachita and taking her on weekends and just lots of fun stuff, just being outdoors and experiencing all the great spots we have in our state."
On July 12, 2012, they were in Las Vegas.
"We had won some part of that trip in an auction and kind of pieced the rest of it together," Stan recalls.
During a helicopter tour over the Grand Canyon, Stan proposed to Kate.
"That was our first morning in Vegas, so then we spent the rest of the trip kind of on a high," Kate says. "The funny part is that we had called all of our family and friends and said, 'Let's have a party when we get home,' and they all thought we had eloped."
They married six months later, on Jan. 12, 2013 -- the anniversary of their first date -- in the atrium of the Arkansas Arts Center. There was a champagne and hors d'oeuvres hour in the lower lobby and gardens outside, followed by a reception in the atrium.
Kate and Stan honeymooned in Greece and in Bulgaria, where they had an opportunity to celebrate their marriage with Stan's relatives who could not make it to the wedding.
"The majority of his family still live there so it was really fun to get to be there and have them be a part of it all afterwards," she says.
Many of the friends from the group that initially brought them together at Central have returned to Little Rock after some time away. It's a busy time of life for Kate, director of marketing at WER Architects, and for Stan, a banker at Stephens Inc., but they try to get together with those friends when schedules allow.
"It's been fun to get to be with those same people that we knew so long ago," she says.
The Dimitrovs took a hiatus from visiting the Arkansas Arts Center during its expansion and renovation but look forward to many future visits to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts now that it has reopened. They have already signed up their children -- Theodore, 8, and Lydia, 4 -- for art classes.
"Definitely as a cultural aspect to our family life and our life as individuals, it has been very important to us," Kate says.
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NoneThe first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: "I just thought he was cute and fun."
He says: "I liked her. When we reconnected I was happy to see her again."
On our wedding day:
She says: "After we were married, we went over to this little library room at the arts center and just got to actually talk to each other for the first time all day, just the two of us."
He says: "I remember seeing her at the Capital Hotel for the first time on our wedding day, right before we got married."
My advice for a long happy marriage:
She says: "Life is so crazy and complicated and we have two little kids and two very busy jobs and its easy to get overwhelmed with it all, so just sit down and laugh with each other about it."
He says: "Definitely laugh together."